The IBM ScreenView product is a set of services which can be installed on an operating system for developing applications with a consistent user interface and for running these applications. ScreenView essentially consists of two parts, a Runtime Service (RTS) which provide services to applications at run time, and an Application Development Services (ADS) which support programmers to develop various user interface types for those applications which are consistent across all applications. ScreenView version 1.1. is described in the following publications:
ScreenView User's Guide (IBM Publications Number SC33-6451); PA1 ScreenView Application Developer's Guide (IBM Publications Number SC33-6452); and PA1 ScreenView Application Developer's Reference (IBM Publications Number SC33-6453).
When working with ScreenView, all the ScreenView applications appear as a number of objects on which the end user can perform certain actions. For example, when configuring a computer system, the objects that would be seen (so-called graphic objects) include processors, disks and/or control units and the actions that may be performed would include delete, connect and/or add. ScreenView enables object sharing and eases interoperability among applications. An example of such an application is described in the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol 35, no 2, July 1992, pp 58-63 in an article entitled "Graphical Definition of Configuration Objects".
The design of the end user interface for ScreenView applications focuses on the objects which the end user can view and manipulate. The end user interface specification is programmed using a declarative language called a user interface declaration (UID).
A view in ScreenView is a representation of details of an object, for example what the object contains, how it is composed and/or what its properties are. Views allow a user to look at details of an object and to manipulate the object. When using a graphical display device, a view could represent the picture displayed on the display screen and the objects would be shown as icons on the display screen. The term "graphic objects" is often used to describe the objects displayed on the graphical display device.
Once the objects are defined, the designer of the user interface must select the views which would give the end users the best access to the objects to enable them to fulfill their tasks. The designer must determine which graphic objects the end user needs to see simultaneously in order to be able to manipulate the object relationships. As the number of graphic objects increases, the number of relations increases dramatically. The designer must ensure that graphic objects which bear a close relationship with each other are displayed near each other on the screen.
Additional problems arise when the user is able to manipulate the interface himself so that the position of graphic objects in the view is changed. This can lead to some graphic objects being hidden under other graphic objects as the resolution of the graphical display device on which the graphic objects are placed is not sufficient to display both graphic objects simultaneously.
Known from the prior art is an article entitled "Dynamic Repositioning of Object Areas on a Page" in the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol 32, no 10B, March 1990, pp 77-78. In this article, a reusable shell-layout definition for a page in a document is used to provide automatic changes to the layout of the page as information is placed into object areas.